They Hurt Her Loyal Dog for Fun, Thinking She Was Just a Weak Widow — Then They Discovered the Woman They Humiliated Was the Mafia Queen Who Ruled Them All

Chapter 7

The Venner mansion was everything Ruby had feared and worse — a showroom of money with nothing underneath it, marble floors and chandeliers and a staircase wide enough to drive a car up. A maid in a starched uniform led them down a hall lined with framed photographs of the Venner family shaking hands with people they had presumably paid to stand next to.

Cyrus Venner shook Mara’s hand with the boneless grip of a man who thought he was doing the other person a favor.

“You must be Haley’s mother.” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Lucas mentioned you. Come in, come in. We were just—” He paused, looking from Ruby to Mara, and his smile turned fixed. “Actually, I believe we’re expecting important guests any minute.”

“Then we’ll be quick,” Mara said pleasantly. “Haley and Lucas have been seeing each other for two years, and our families haven’t met, so we thought we’d come say hello.”

Rosalie Venner appeared in the doorway of the sitting room, hands clasped, smile like a paper cut. She looked Ruby up and down the way a dealer looks at a car he suspects is stolen — taking in her secondhand coat, her sensible shoes, the careful way she stood, as if she’d rehearsed not taking up space.

“Lucas’s girlfriend?” She let the word hang there, tasting it. “Our family is one of the most prominent in Lion Town. It’s a bit of a stretch to think Lucas would have *someone like you* as a girlfriend, isn’t it?”

Ruby’s smile flickered. “I… what do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I said.” Rosalie stepped closer, all sugar and teeth. “I’m sure you’ve heard. We’ve just secured a deal with the Silver Wolves — the *top* organization in the state. We’re about to be the biggest names in town. A poor girl like you can never be with someone like Lucas. You don’t belong in our world. Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Mrs. Venner, please.” Ruby’s voice was small but steady. “Lucas and I have been together for almost two years. We really do love each other.”

Mara turned to look at the boy in question — Lucien Venner, lounging in the doorway, arms crossed, watching his girlfriend beg with the bored amusement of a cat watching a mouse perform.

“Lucas,” Mara said. “Do you love my daughter?”

Lucien shrugged. “I never said I loved her. We were just messing around. I thought she knew that.”

The words landed like thrown stones. Ruby didn’t move. She just stood there, and Mara watched her daughter’s face do something no mother should ever have to watch — the slow, soundless collapse of a girl learning that the boy she’d loved had been practicing for this moment for two years.

“No matter what,” Mara said carefully, “Haley has been with you for two years. I can tell she really cares about you. Have you just been using her?”

“I’m only telling the truth.” Lucien’s voice was flat, dismissive. “It’s not my fault she deluded herself into thinking it was more than it was. She threw herself at me. That’s on her, not me. I never forced her. I never promised her anything.”

“How dare you be so cruel to my daughter?”

Cyrus Venner laughed — a short, oily sound. “Sir, let’s be honest. You think we’re not good enough for you. You think we have no money, no power. Well.” He gestured at Mara’s coat, her boots, her secondhand quietness. “Look at what you’re wearing. You really think you belong in this house? Step back a little. That poverty stench might rub off on us.”

Mara Quinn stood very still in the marble foyer of the house that was about to fall, and she spoke with a calm that should have frightened every person in the room.

“I came here to do you a favor. Do you really think that without my support, your little irrelevant gang would survive?”

“You dare—” Cyrus’s face flushed. “We earned this deal! It’s because of the Silver Wolves!”

“It has nothing to do with you,” Mara said. “A low life like you has no business talking trash in front of—”

“Oh, a low life like me.” Mara’s voice dropped to a temperature the room hadn’t felt since winter.

“Come get these two out of my house,” Cyrus snapped at a servant. “Sir — Miss Emily and her family are here!”

The Ashfords had arrived.

Evelyn Ashford came through the door like weather — flawless in white, her parents a half-step behind her, the particular arrogance of old money judging new. Cyrus Venner turned to face them and the charm switched on like a light, leaving Ruby and her mother stranded in the middle of the foyer like furniture nobody remembered ordering.

“Wonderful to meet you,” Cyrus was saying. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

And the door swung shut behind them, sealing Ruby and Mara inside the house of the people who had just declared them dirt.